The dental arts industry is concerned with the creation of dental replacements, including bridges, caps, crowns, dentures, and the like. Heretofore it has been the common practice in the industry to cast from a metal, such as gold, a crown or replacement tooth to which a ceramic or porcelain type material is applied to crate a natural appearing tooth. A common implement used by dental technicians in such dental appliances has been a small table-top vibrator. In practice, the dental technician takes a small pointed brush in his hand, adheres ceramic material to the tip of the brush and applies it to the metal substrate by resting his hand against the table-top vibrator.
As the ceramic is applied to the tooth with a brush, the vibrations from the vibrator are passed through the hand to the brush tip and aide in gently distributing the ceramic material about the surface of the tooth. The process is time consuming and extremely tedious for the dental technician, since it requires that the hand be held against the vibrator during application of the ceramic.
There has been a need for a dental tool of the type disclosed in the present application for aiding dental technicians in applying ceramic type material to metal substrates. The present invention overcomes the problems and inefficiencies characteristic of the equipment now in use in the dental industry. Patents in the so-called electric toothbrush field, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,977,614; 3,166,943 and 3,379,906, are unrelated to the present invention, in that they are not adapted for use in the dental technology field, and in addition provide for rotary motion and/or longitudinally reciprocal motion of the toothbrush. Such motions are not desirable for the present invention, and in fact could not be employed in the dental technology field.